Meet the Son of a Werewolf
by SweetDeamon
Summary: "There come times in all our lives, love, when we have to grow up whether we want to or not. Dad and I can't shield you forever. Sometimes I wish that we could...but...but you know in the end what good would that really do you? That's no way to live a life". 10 year old Teddy spends his first full moon at home and witnesses his parents' routine. AU. RLNT.


_Note: I found some almost-finished one shots lurking on my laptop whilst I was having a clear out. So I thought I'd finish this one off and post it, just for nostalgia's sake..._

 _This is an AU fic in which Remus and Tonks survived the war. It's set in the Meet the... ficverse out of laziness but probably stands alone perfectly well..._

 **Meet the Son of a Werewolf**

It was late afternoon when, after some half an hour of waiting to hear a knock at the front door or the sound of roaring emerald flames from the sitting room's fireplace, ten year old Teddy Lupin finally abandoned his bag upon the floor at the bottom of the stairs and shuffled down the hallway. He came to a halt at the study doorway, leaning heavily upon the doorframe and swinging an idle leg back and forth.

"Mum?" the boy mumbled, frowning deeply at the increasingly late hour, and from where she sat behind a desk strewn with papers, tapping a quill pensively against the edge of a thick leather bound tome, Dora Lupin glance up at her son, before returning to staring down at the papers.

"Hm?"

"When's Gran coming to get me?"

"When's she coming to get you?"  
"Yes, what time is she coming? I think she's late, it's almost five o'clock already..."

"Is it really?" Dora turned in her seat to eye the clock upon the wall, finding that true to Teddy's word it was fast approaching five o'clock in the evening. The Auror puffed her cheeks in exasperation, tossing the quill down upon the desk so that she could reach to rake a weary hand through her hair, which was today a surprisingly conservative shade of brown. "Merlin," she muttered, slumping back in her seat. "Doesn't time fly when you're having fun!"

"I suppose..." Teddy mumbled uncertainly. He had been avoiding his mother for most of the day, as was both customary and indeed wise on any day that she chose to stagger back from the Ministry ladened with paperwork so that she could spend time working from home. Paperwork was without a doubt Dora's most hated work-related task, and as Deputy Head of the Auror Department she seemed to spend an unfortunately large amount of her time drowning under the weight of parchment and ink. The whole business had a habit of making her exceptionally short-tempered. Disturbing her whilst she was busy battling her way through one report or another was somewhat akin to tickling a sleeping dragon, and as certain famous mottos led Teddy to believe, this was by no means a sensible thing to do.

Indeed, he was only talking to her now because it was about time she gave up on paperwork for the day anyway. The study looked chaotic enough that Teddy suspected she still had a fair amount of work that needed doing. She seemed remarkably calm and in good humour despite this, a fact that Teddy found somewhat unsettling.

"Gran hasn't forgotten what day it is or something, has she?" the young wizard wondered, chewing worriedly upon a nail, and Dora shook her head.

"Oh no, love. No, I'm sure Gran knows what day it is. In fact Dad and I popped over and spoke to her yesterday whilst you were having lunch at Harry's. We had a...a nice long chat all about...all about this evening!"

Teddy frowned deeply.

"What's there to chat about?" he wondered, utterly bemused, after all the arrangement regarding the evening of the full moon between his parents and his grandmother had been the same for as long as Teddy could remember. Andromeda always came in the afternoon to collect Teddy and take him back to her house, returning him the next day once Dora had flooed to announce that all was well and that Remus was safe and sound back at home again. Though nobody ever hid anything from Teddy regarding what went on during his absence, the whole process had an air of mystery to it which the werewolf's son was more than happy to breathe in. Ignorance, as they say, was bliss, and ten year old Teddy would happily go on the way things were forever.

There was no need to have a nice long chat about it, that was for sure!

"We've decided, Sweetheart," his mother told him as she shuffled her papers into a haphazard pile in front of her, "Dad and I have decided, that is, that we really can't keep asking Gran to have you to stay like this every month..."

"Why not?"

"Well, there are quite a few reasons, really..."

"Like what?"

At her son's defensive tone, the Auror sighed heavily, looking up at the boy with a small, sad smile.

"Come and sit down, love." she suggested, and an old dusty stool immediately came skidding out of a corner towards the desk with a slight inclination of the witch's head.  
Reluctantly, Teddy shuffled forward to drop down onto the seat, and with that he watched his mother carefully fold her hands upon the desk between them, leaning heavily upon her elbows.

"Listen, Sweetheart," she said after a long pause that had made the boy fidget. "You're not a little boy anymore, are you? You'll be off to Hogwarts next year! Gosh, seems like only yesterday I was giving you bottles and singing you off to sleep...time really does fly!"

Teddy leant his arms upon the desk so that he could rest his chin atop them, frowning down at the grains of wood. When he failed to say anything, Dora reached to press a comforting hand to his arm as she pointed out: "And part of growing up, Teddy, is...is learning to see the world for what it really is."

Teddy, lips pursed tightly together until they very nearly disappeared from his face, began to slowly shake his head.

His mother slid a hand across the desk until she could reach to smooth his hair.

"There come times in all our lives, love, when we have to grow up whether we want to or not. Dad and I can't shield you forever. Sometimes I wish that we could...but...but you know in the end what good would that really do you? That's no way to live a life."

His silent pleading getting him nowhere, the boy buried his face in his arms instead.  
"No, Mum."

"Sweetheart, listen to me..."

"Not yet, Mum. Not yet."

"Oh love," Dora's hand came to rest heavily upon her son's shoulder, "there's no more time..."

"Yes there is. You just have to...to tell Gran..."

"I can't do that."

"You can. You can, Mum. P...please, Mum..."

"Teddy..."

"...please don't...don't make me stay. Don't make me...I don't want to...to see...to see..."

" _Theodore_."

She used his full name so rarely that to hear her do so now made Teddy pause.

"Look at me." she said, voice surprisingly firm, and at her grip upon his shoulder tightening he reluctantly looked up to meet her gaze.

Dora leant forward, dark eyes piercing.

"You cannot walk through life with your eyes closed." she informed him frankly, and he made to pull away from her, only for her hand upon his shoulder to hold him still.

"I..." he began to protest, but this time Dora shook her head.

"I know you're frightened, Sweetheart, but it's time now for you to be brave. And I know you can be brave for Dad's sake because Dad has always been so brave for you, hasn't he? And you're his boy. You were _born_ brave with a dad like him."

"I don't feel very brave." Teddy admitted, not yet convinced, and his mother confessed:

"Neither does your father. But sometimes we don't always have a choice."

"I do. Just floo Gran..."

Dora released his shoulder with a heavy sigh, reaching to rake a frustrated hand through her hair. Teddy began to wonder if they were heading towards some sort of argument, but then she leant back in her chair, eyes gazing up towards the ceiling. To his bemusement she told him:

"The truth is, your father and I can't pack you off to Hogwarts until we've gotten past all this."

"W...what?!"

"You heard me, Sweetheart."

"Y...you'll...you'll not...you'll not let me go to school if...if I don't...?!"

Dora sighed heavily.

"You'll be on that train, I'm sure." she assured him. "But as Dad told me this morning, you'll be ill prepared for it if we don't cross this bridge first. And frankly he's right, love. You are not ready for Hogwarts. If I had to send you off tomorrow morning I would feel very uncomfortable about it."

"I'm not a baby..." Teddy began to protest indignantly, feeling increasingly agitated by the whole conversion, only for Dora to interrupt:

"You're my baby. I know precisely how grown you are, I know it better than you do yourself, I always have done and I always will do."

Teddy buried his face in his arms again.

"I don't see what Hogwarts has to do with the full moon anyway." he complained sulkily, and his mother's gaze dropped back down from an intent inspection of the ceiling above them.

"It has everything to do with it, Teddy."

She reached for his hands, then, as if she thought he might try and escape, but Teddy thought she ought not bother for her eyes upon him were pinning him to the spot, even though he was still stubbornly hiding his face.

"You're a Lupin, Theodore. Your parents are members of the Order of the Phoenix, they fought against Voldemort in the war and received the Order of Merlin, First Class. You're Harry Potter's godson. Your mother is the Deputy Head of Aurors. People know these things. Children might well know them when you go to school. But there's something else they might know, if they've paid enough attention, even though we've never broadcast the fact. There are a whole load of misconceptions and vast amounts of hearsay surrounding werewolves, and children have a particular kind of talent for nonsense like that. If your classmates happen to know anything at all about Dad's condition it is very important that you know a whole lot more than they do. You need to know the facts, Teddy. You need to see it all for yourself. Because if you don't those misinformed people can hurt you."

"I don't care what anyone thinks."

"We all care what people think, love. It's in our nature. That's why, when we don't like what people think, we have to be able to step back and...and see the bigger picture, see where they are coming from. That way we can come to terms with their opinion, however wrong or downright ridiculous they may be. Teddy...I don't want you to feel frightened at school. I don't want you to feel the way I did."

Teddy, who was quite certain that his mother had probably never been frightened of anything in her entire life, looked up.

"What do you mean?" he asked her, and she smiled a little at the surprise in his voice.

"I think some bright spark identified me as the niece of the notorious Bellatrix Lestrange within a week of me setting foot inside Hogwarts." Dora recalled, arching an eyebrow as she reached to adjust the papers upon the desk absent-mindedly. "I might've been a Hufflepuff and my mother might've been a blood traitor but it didn't do me much good. It probably made it worse. The Slytherins thought I was a traitor by birth and not fit to kiss their shoes, whilst the rest of the school were of the opinion that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, so I had to be a deranged, psychopathic lunatic plotting to murder the other Hufflepuffs in their sleep. Not that any of that made me afraid, of course, just wildly unpopular for a time. The problem was, Ted, we didn't speak about Bellatrix or any of your gran's other dubious relations back at home. I knew about as much as the other children did. So when they told me Bellatrix was bound to break out of Azkaban with the sole aim of wiping me and my parents from the face of the earth with a quick Avada Kedavra, I entirely believed them! They even told me she'd send someone else after me if she couldn't break out of prison herself! If my parents had told me more I'd probably have realised the crazed old nutjob had better things to do with her time than think about me!"

"They weren't entirely wrong." Teddy pointed out warily. "She did try to kill you..."

"After I grew up, qualified as an Auror, joined the Order and voluntarily picked a fight with her, yes! But back then? When I was a child? I'm not even entirely sure she knew I existed! And even if she did, being entirely devoted to Voldemort's cause was pretty bloody time consuming! Merlin knows what goes on in a mind like that, but I can tell you I wasn't part of it. As if my parents would have sent me to Hogwarts if there was even a hint of anything to be worried about. My dad would've had us in hiding at the drop of a hat. I suffered for weeks. I went home for Christmas in a state of utter terror, my parents were mortified, they wrote to Dumbledore to complain! There was an awkward speech the night I went back to school...Dumbledore didn't mention any names of course, but he went on for quite some time about scaremongering and the consequences of distasteful remarks. So!" Dora leant heavily forward in her chair and paused to sigh heavily. Then she told her son:

"Your father is a werewolf, Theodore. And whether you are here at home tonight or over at your grandmother's house, he is going to go through his transformation the same way he does every month. He'll be on Wolfsbane but we can expect a cut or bruise or two and when he comes home he'll be very unwell, there's no doubt about that. Maybe the Wolfsbane's bad. Maybe he'll be a mess, maybe I'll have to sit with him all day and through half the next night, or maybe I'll have to take him to St. Mungo's so they can patch him up properly. He might get a fever and Molly'll come over and fuss over him something rotten until he wishes he was in hospital instead. He might make me cry, he might make you cry, he might make the two of us sob. Or he might crack a joke the minute I dump him on the sofa and we'll all laugh about it. Maybe it'll all seem entirely uneventful, in fact that's more than likely. It'll be that way every month and maybe it frightens you right now, but soon enough it won't seem so scary. And when you go off to Hogwarts you'll know all there is to know about Dad and lycanthropy and what's the truth and what's a load of rubbish a bunch of school children spout because they don't know any better. And that is very important. Do you understand?"

The werewolf's son found only marginal comfort in his mother's words, but nevertheless he managed a feeble nod.

"Good, Sweetheart." Dora said softly, and with that she reached once again for her quill and looked back down at her work as if that were entirely the end of the matter, adding as an afterthought: "Find yourself a good book to take to bed this evening. I'll be taking Dad somewhere safe later and I don't want you roaming about the house whilst I'm gone. You'll have to be in bed well before moonrise."

Teddy gave a heavy sigh of defeat as he slid off his chair and back onto his feet with a thud, whereupon he left the room without another word.

He heard the approaching footsteps making their way slowly up the stairs as he lay curled up beneath the duvet, light still penetrating the gaps between the curtains that he had drawn firmly closed. He stared blankly down at the book in his hands as he heard the door open, and did not bother to look up when he heard the sound of the mug being set down upon his bedside table, the unmistakable aroma of cocoa drifting through the air.

"Room service..." his father announced half a second later, and Teddy could not seem to drag his eyes away from their blank inspection of the pages before him.

Remus wasted no time in sinking down to perch upon the edge of the bed, the shifting of the mattress made Teddy wince.

"And what are we reading this evening, I wonder?"

Teddy finally looked up as the werewolf reached to prise the book from his hands. He had never looked upon his father so close to full moon before. Though he looked distinctly off colour, Remus appeared to look remarkably normal as an examination of his son's reading material caused his brow to furrow.

"Where did you find this?" he asked, looking down at the ghastly creature silhouetted against the dim silvery moon upon the cover, and Teddy immediately shifted further beneath the duvet, thoroughly embarrassed.

"Bottom of Mum's wardrobe..." he mumbled reluctantly. "I was looking for birthday presents..."

Remus flicked through the book, eying the various grizzly pictures and diagrams with a distinct air of resignation before shutting it again with a snap that made Teddy jump.

"I shall let you into a little secret, Teddy." the werewolf said, holding up the book. "I have read this volume from cover to cover and it is not nearly as exciting as the pictures suggest! It is a textbook aimed at Auror cadets. Do you have any idea how dull those sorts of books can be? Very dry, very uninspired...full of all sorts of technical terms and figures! Not at all the sort of book to fuel the imagination at bedtime!" With that he reached to set the book down at his side before instead reaching for one which he had tucked under his arm. Holding it out for Teddy to take he told him: "I read this one when I was about your age."

Teddy accepted the book somewhat half-heartedly. He examined the front cover and found it to be an absolute world away from his previously selected reading material. A colourful, if a little faded scene had been emblazoned across the cover and it spoke of a tropical island baked in glorious sunshine and awash with magical wildlife entirely unknown to the boy who squinted down at it. Such an intricate illustration was no doubt intriguing and so it was that Teddy managed to muster a shred of enthusiasm when his father suggested:

"See if you can manage a few chapters before you go to sleep – we shall compare notes over breakfast! Brownie points if you can spot the big twist before the start of Chapter Four!"

Teddy wondered if his father would be up for breakfast, let alone for any sort of lively discussion over it. Nevertheless, Remus wished him a cheerful goodnight and suggested he drink his cocoa before it grew cold. Then the werewolf disappeared back out of the room, the grizzly book tucked casually under his arm.

His wife found him in the sitting room some short while later, stood before the fireplace, staring into the smouldering grate. The room was unbearably hot and stuffy.

"We're lighting the fire in _July_ now, then." Dora observed dryly as she wandered into the room, only to peer around him at the fire in question to add: "And _burning books_..."

"Hm." Remus said as he watched the singed paper curl and blacken.

"I thought that was a crime."

"Hm?"

"Burning books, love. You used to say it was a crime to burn a book."

He puffed his cheeks a little in nonchalance and reasoned:

"I've been labelled a criminal before."

She gave a soft huff of laughter, reached to press her palms against his back.

"It's getting late." she murmured, hands running slowly up his back to rest upon his shoulders, probing fingers finding them uncharacteristically tense. "We ought be going soon, I think."

As her fingers kneaded soothingly at the stiff muscles his gaze dropped to his shoes and he reluctantly agreed:

"Yes..."

"Are you alright, Sweetheart?"

"Yes..."

She turned him round to face him, finding him entirely yielding to a gentle tug upon his arm and once she could peer questioningly up at his downcast face she asked:

"What is it?"

"Nothing really, just..."

"Just what?"

When he only fidgeted a little under her gaze she pressed:  
"What, love?"

He drew a slow, deep breath as if steeling his composure, only to sound perfectly panicked to wonder:

"What if...what if it's a bad one?"

Despite her best efforts, Dora felt herself frowning deeply.

"Why should it be a bad one?"

"Because! What if it's bad? What if I...what if I...I end up in Mungo's or...or what if I'm sick or..."

"Sweetheart, there's not been a bad full moon for almost six months. We've had Wolfsbane from the same apothecary that whole time, it's the same this month and we've never had a bad batch from them..."

"But..."

"You're going to be fine, love. I'm certain of it." Dora reached to smooth the hair back from his brow, free hand reaching to lace their fingers together as he swallowed a sizeable lump in his throat. "Where's all this coming from, hm?" she asked, rising up upon her toes until she could rest her forehead against his. "You're always so calm..."

"Dora," he said, having managed to grasp hold of his senses again until his voice was steady, "if I am unwell...if I am weak when you come to fetch me you must not bring me home, you must take me somewhere else..."

"Where else am I going to take you, Remus? Of course I'm going to bring you home..."

"You'll do no such thing."

"Will I not? And I suppose you'll be up for stopping me, will you?"

The werewolf's expression grew abruptly furious.

"I will _not_ have Teddy see me in a state like that!"

"Then I'll send him to his room." Dora insisted stubbornly, and before he could protest, for he looked ready to do so, she briskly instructed: "Don't argue, Remus. We've talked about this already and we agreed. He's your son. This is the life his father leads. No amount of bundling him up in cotton wool is going to change that, he's going to have to stand on his own two feet." And with that she reached to press a resolute kiss to his lips and told him: "I'll fetch your cloak."

The silvery full moon had been hanging outside his bedroom window for some hours before Teddy finally admitted to himself that he could not sleep a wink.

The young boy found himself shuffling out of bed and out onto the landing, where he found the door to his parents' bedroom ajar. The door creaked a little when he went to push it open and he found his mother in darkness, sat motionlessly up in bed, seemingly wide awake.

He wondered if she ever slept when there was a full moon in the sky.

"Alright, love?" Dora greeted softly, and having lay numbly in bed in utter silence for so long, Teddy found the sound of her voice brought a sudden flood of relief. Before he knew it, he had rushed into the room and slipped under the duvet to lie beside her, his head coming to rest against her shoulder. His mother wrapped her arms tightly around him and shifted the duvet up towards his chin. She smelled sweet and soapy and her skin felt soft and her night dress cool and silky and he could catch the muted aroma of his father's cologne upon the sheets.

"How long until sunrise?" he whispered, and Dora yawned widely and said:

"Five hours at least, I should think." She reached to smooth the hair from his eyes and told him: "Try and get some sleep."

"I can't..." Teddy mumbled, though he felt his eyes already drooping.

"Just try, Sweetheart." his mother whispered, and after a moment she began to softly hum a tune which he could not immediately place, until...

"...'s the Weird Sisters..."

"Mm."

"...what sort of a lullaby is that?"

He felt her give a huff of amusement.

"I've been singing you to sleep with Weird Sisters songs since the day you were born, Teddy!"

Teddy's face contorted in bemusement at the idea, causing her to insist:

"You were very fond of Petrified Hearts and Do the Hippogriff when you were two and half."

"I bet Dad didn't sing those to me!"

"Well no...not that I can remember, but still..." At the look she could vaguely spy upon his face through the dark she sighed and said: "Alright, alright. How about this one? Your Nana Lupin used to sing it to your dad and he used to sing it to you. It's a muggle lullaby...if I can remember the words..."

Just a couple of lines in and it became apparent that she certainly could not remember the words, and yet it made little difference to Teddy, for her vague humming washed over him and he found himself at last feeling sleepy.

He drifted off to sleep just a few minutes later.

His mother remained awake for many hours more.

Dora was gone when Teddy awoke.

Sunlight was streaming through the gap between the curtains and for a moment Teddy lay stock still, for though sleep had eluded him for some while the previous night, suddenly being awake seemed far more intimidating. After a while he rolled over to squint at the alarm clock upon his mother's bedside table. It was fast approaching ten o'clock in the morning...

Downstairs the front door opened. Teddy could hear it swinging back on its hinges.

His heart began to pound and before he could think better of it Teddy had leapt out of his parents bed and dashed to the top of the stairs. Once there, he took a few, rather more hesitant steps downwards until he could see his mother edging her way over the threshold. At the sound of his approach, the witch look up. Her dark eyes upon him seemed to pin Teddy to the spot.

Dora eyed her son in consideration for a long moment before glancing over her shoulder back outside. Then she looked back at Teddy again before she finally called:

"Morning, Sweetheart!"

The colour visibly drained from Teddy's face and he reached to grasp hold of the bannister in an attempt to steel his nerves. He looked so startled that, upon hearing movement behind her Dora reached a blind hand backwards to silently bring the scene to a standstill. She continued to eye Teddy in consideration for a moment before deciding:

"Go to your room, love."

Teddy did not need to be told twice.

As he disappeared, Dora reached to push the door further open with a sigh and as she turned to offer an arm to her husband she murmured:

"Baby steps, Remus..."

"For Teddy or for me?" Remus inquired hoarsely, shuffling stiffly over the threshold and gladly tucking his hand into the crook of her steadying arm.

"For the three of us, I think."

With Teddy out of sight, his parents fell into their usual routine. Dora bundled Remus onto the sofa in the living room with a mound of cushions and blankets, scrutinised him from head to toe and concluded with audible relief that it had been an uneventful night, though he looked very pale and was distinctly feverish. She fetched him a clean shirt and a cool flannel to press to his forehead and face and a dose or two of various draughts to attempt to fight off the fever, and almost immediately he fell into a death-like slumber, cold sweat steadily gathering upon his brow. She stood observing him in silence for some five minutes, and once a sense of calm had descended upon her she swiftly felt it give way to such exhaustion that she immediately stumbled off towards the kitchen to make herself an exceptionally strong cup of coffee. It was true that she rarely slept the whole night through under the light of a full moon, but it had been some while since her anxiety had left her not to sleep at all.

Whilst she waited for the coffee to brew she poured herself a generous glass of firewhiskey and, turning resolutely away from the scolding influence of the clock upon the kitchen wall that would inform her of the early hour, downed it in two large gulps. Then she set the glass heavily down upon the countertop, frowned at it for a moment, before heaving a heavy sigh and heading upstairs to brush the telling scent of alcohol from her breath with liberal amounts of toothpaste. On her way back downstairs a few minutes later she went to summon her son from his bedroom with a knock upon the door.

"Sweetheart?" she called, managing to sound surprisingly brisk. "Pop downstairs for me, won't you? I need you in the kitchen!" When Teddy failed to respond immediately she added: "Dad's asleep in the sitting room."

And so it was that Teddy found himself wordlessly incorporated into the usual routine, for when he shuffled reluctantly out of the room him mother whisked him off downstairs and instructed him to make his father a cup of tea with sugar.

An awful lot of sugar. It made even Teddy, who had a sweet tooth to say the least, wrinkle is nose in disgust. And before he could protest his mother had ushered him out of the kitchen with the mug clasped nervously in his hands and he had been persuaded into the sitting room where he found his father pale-faced and sickly, fast asleep.

Dora awoke him unceremoniously by half-shouting his name, which made Teddy flinch...

But then Remus had opened his eyes, blinked groggily for a moment, before settling them upon the boy stood clutching the steaming mug in his hands, and then to Teddy's deepest relief the werewolf simply smiled.

"Is that for me?" he wondered, before clearing his throat noisily when he found his voice terribly hoarse. It seemed to do the trick for when Teddy nodded mutely he sounded far brighter by far to observe: "What a fine thing that is, I could murder a cup of tea!"

He seemed to struggle a little sitting up straight, yet he determinedly did so, swinging his legs carefully down to the floor and sitting so bolt upright in the chair that it was almost as if he were not unwell at all. He accepted the mug cheerfully and patted the now vacant space beside him, inquiring of his son:

"So, how did you find the book I gave you? How far did you get?"

And as he went to perch upon the edge of the sofa at his father's side, Teddy found himself feeling surprisingly relaxed and before he knew it he had entered into a lively discussion with his father about pirate wizards, cursed treasure and whether or not there really was such a thing as a fire breathing parrot. After a while Remus suggested he fetch the book so that they might continue reading together and as he took the stairs two at a time, Teddy thought it might have been any other Sunday morning.

Back in the sitting room, Remus instantly slumped back against his pillows the moment the child was out of sight.

"You should sleep, love." he wife informed him a moment later when she came to peer into the room. "Don't push yourself."

"Have we any Pepper Up potion?" the werewolf wondered, frowning deeply into the back of his eyelids and Dora gave a soft huff of disapproval.

"No, we're all out."

"Coffee, then?"

Dora folded her arms across her chest in a distinctly disapproving manner, but the gesture was futile for Remus did not see it.

"What did we say?" she reminded him as they heard Teddy's bedroom door being thrown open upstairs. "Baby steps, Remus..."

"Precisely, Dora. And baby steps for Teddy right now is...is sitting down here with me and reading a book."

At the sound of Teddy's noisy descent of the stairs, Dora's ability to protest was entirely scuppered.

"Half a chapter only, or else!" the witch conceded as her son half-skipped past her into the room.

She left father and son sat together upon the sofa, the boy curled up against his father's side as Remus balanced the book carefully upon his knees and set about reading aloud, voice not much above a whisper but perfectly clear enough to his captive audience. The soft sound was lost to Dora almost as soon as she stepped back out into the hallway, but as she made a beeline for the coffee pot upon the stove, the witch found herself smiling.

 **Finish.**


End file.
